Related papers: Experimental design and model selection: The examp…
Survey strategies for upcoming exoplanet direct imaging missions have considered varying assumptions of prior knowledge. Precursor radial velocity surveys could have detected nearby exo-Earths and provided prior orbit and mass constraints.…
The next generation of telescopes will yield a substantial increase in the availability of high-resolution spectroscopic data for thousands of exoplanets. The sheer volume of data and number of planets to be analyzed greatly motivate the…
Mass and radius of planets transiting their host stars are provided by radial velocity and photometric observations. Structural models of solid exoplanet interiors are then constructed by using equations of state for the radial density…
From simulations of transit observations, it is found that the detectability of extrasolar planets depends only on two parameters: The signal-to-noise ratio during a transit, and the number of data points observed during transits. All other…
We propose a method to ease the challenges of exploring multi-dimensional parameter spaces in beyond-the-Standard Model theories. We evaluate the model likelihood for any choice of parameters by sampling the theory parameters intelligently…
(Abridged) The discovery of extrasolar planetary systems revealed an unexpected diversity of planetary systems that has revolutionized planet formation theory. A strong program of theoretical research is essential to maximize both the…
We investigate a new approach to the detection of companions to extrasolar planets beyond the transit method. We discuss the possibility of the existence of binary planets. We develop a method based on the imaging of a planet-companion as…
The detection of exoplanets in coronographic images is severely limited by residual starlight speckles. Dedicated post-processing can drastically reduce this "stellar leakage" and thereby increase the faintness of detectable exoplanets.…
We investigate the estimation of orbital parameters by least-$\chi^2$ Keplerian fits to radial velocity (RV) data using synthetic data sets. We find that while the fitted period is fairly accurate, the best-fit eccentricity and $M_p\sin i$…
To achieve maximum planet yield for a given radial velocity survey, the observing strategy must be carefully considered. In particular, the adopted cadence can greatly affect the sensitivity to exoplanetary parameters such as period and…
A fundamental endeavor in exoplanetary research is to characterize the bulk compositions of planets via measurements of their masses and radii. With future sample sizes of hundreds of planets to come from TESS and PLATO, we develop a…
We show that a space-based gravitational microlensing survey for terrestrial extra-solar planets is feasible in the near future, and could provide a nearly complete picture of the properties of planetary systems in our Galaxy. We present…
There are different methods for finding exoplanets such as radial spectral shifts, astrometrical measurements, transits, timing etc. Gravitational microlensing (including pixel-lensing) is among the most promising techniques with the…
The discovery of the first extra-solar planet surrounding a main-sequence star was announced in 1995, based on very precise radial velocity (Doppler) measurements. A total of 34 such planets were known by the end of March 2000, and their…
Direct imaging of widely separated exoplanets from space will obtain their reflected light spectra and measure their atmospheric properties, and small and temperate planets will be the focus of the next generation telescopes. In this work,…
Several exoplanets have been detected towards the Galactic bulge with the microlensing technique. We show that exoplanets in M31 may also be detected with the pixel-lensing method, if telescopes making high cadence observations of an…
It is suggested that the distribution of orbital eccentricities for extrasolar planets is well-described by the Beta distribution. Several properties of the Beta distribution make it a powerful tool for this purpose. For example, the Beta…
Model selection aims to determine which theoretical models are most plausible given some data, without necessarily asking about the preferred values of the model parameters. A common model selection question is to ask when new data require…
A space telescope capable of high-contrast imaging has been recognized as the avenue toward finding terrestrial planets around nearby Sun-like stars and characterizing their potential habitability. It is thus essential to quantify the…
In an era when we are charting multiple planets per system, one might wonder the extent to which "missing" (or failing to detect) a planet can skew our interpretation of the system architecture. We address this question with a simple…